


The Ghost of Hasetsu

by GuyBlackhand



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Genderbending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:19:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8549494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuyBlackhand/pseuds/GuyBlackhand
Summary: Hey, have you heard? You know, that Hasetsu has a ghost! She’s pretty famous with the locals. They say she was the wife of a high ranking ninja from the castle, murdered by her husband’s jealous lover. Now she wanders the town looking to punish all philandering men and playboys!
(Or: That one where Yuri!!! On Ice is actually a supernatural anime. Kind of.)





	1. The Ghost of Hasetsu

 

Victor isn’t sure what wakes him up. He’s generally a sound sleeper, and even when he has someone sharing his bed, he only wakes up when his alarm goes off.

“Maccachin, was that you?” But the dog is fast asleep and doesn’t even twitch when Victor gently pats his head.

He lays back down but his eyes refuse to close. What is it? This feeling. He knows he’s felt this before… this _itch_ under his skin. This niggling bead of emotion that he can’t quite put a name to. Annoyance? Dissatisfaction?

Ah, that’s right. He felt this way after winning the last Grand Prix Series.

 _Malaise_.

Even the ice, his skating, couldn’t shake it off. It was only seeing Yuuri’s video that had cured it.

Yakov and Yurio and the rest may think that Yuuri is the reason why he isn’t skating this season. But Victor knows the truth: he was never planning to skate competitively this year.

Yuuri is, in fact, the only reason why Victor isn’t leaving the figure skating world altogether.

But this feeling…

Could it be he’s getting bored already?

Victor closes his eyes and looks inward.

Nope. Definitely not bored of Yuuri yet, and of coaching him. Actually, he thinks with a fond smile, things are just getting really interesting, now that Yuuri has opened up a bit to him.

Really, that Yuuri has gotten so far, and achieved so much, while being so emotionally stunted is a true miracle. Young geniuses like Yurio can get away with a lot on pure technical skill and the elastic athleticism youth gives them, but Yuuri… for him to even make it to his first Grand Prix Finals at 23…

Right now, Yuuri is the most interesting _anything_ in the world to him. If Victor was a less kind man he would have taken and taken and taken, would have gobbled Yuuri up greedily, would have used Yuuri’s innocent adoration of him and broken him open to see how he ticked, what it was that made Yuuri shine so blinding one second out of a thousand mediocre moments.

Ahh, just thinking about it makes Victor’s head spin.

Yuuri may not know it, but he is truly lucky that Victor _is_ a kind man.

So, he thinks, snapping back to the here and now, not Yuuri then.

“Then what is it?” he wonders. What’s making him feel this way? Maccachin, woken by his master’s restive mood, whines sleepily at him. “Sorry, did I wake you?” Victor smiles and leans over for a quick nuzzle. “Maybe a little midnight onsen dip will shake this off.”

Outside his room he glances automatically at Yuuri’s perpetually closed bedroom door before turning down the hall toward the hot springs. The summer night air is pleasantly cool and he could already feel that this was the right decision to make, that sense of unease is already leaving him. In the changing room he shucks off his sleeping pants and grabs a towel, whistling “Eros” quietly to himself as he walks out into—

The woman in the water stares at him with wide, shining eyes.

Victor blinks. “…Yuuri?”

The woman gasps and turns away, long pitch black hair falling in one smooth silken sheet to hide her face.

Victor shakes himself. Yuuri? Of course not. How strange for him to think that. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to intrude, but this is the men’s onsen you know,” he says, easy and carefree, as he steps into the hot, steaming water, “so I hope you don’t mind sharing it with me.”

She keeps her head turned and shifts away from him, which is just fine with Victor. He leans back into the rock and thinks of Yuuri’s free skate program. Yuuri has an impressive amount of stamina, and he thinks perhaps putting in more difficult jumps toward the end would take advantage of that and give him the best opportunity to get the most points. It’s a bit risky though, as Yuuri still struggles with his jumps.

He’s so engrossed in the shape of the performance taking place inside his mind that he almost misses the woman leaving, and only instinct makes him idly glance at her body--at the generous curve of her breasts and the elegant dip of her waist--as she stands.

But it isn’t instinct that makes him stare as she climbs out of the water, as she lifts her leg and bends with a dancer’s easy grace… no, not just any dancer: Yuuri. She moves _exactly_ like Yuuri. The way she walks, balanced and light on her feet, the fall of her arms… even the slightly stiff way she holds her shoulders—the same way Yuuri does when he’s nervous and trying to hide it.

Victor is so stunned by the observation that she’s already pushing past the glass doors to the bathing room when he calls out, “Wait!”

She’s gone by the time he stands dripping outside the onsen entrance, and only the last vestiges of his modesty prevents him from running around the halls, naked and wet, to look for her. He runs his hand through his hair. “What in the world…”

\--

Axel, Lutz, and Loop stare unblinkingly at Victor. He is as easy going as he always is, but a couple of times today they’ve noticed a strange expression on his face when he looks at Yuuri.

“Hey, do you guys think something’s wrong with Victor?” Loop asks as she takes another close-up shot of Victor’s profile with her DSLR.

“Yeah,” Lutz agrees as she likes all of Yurio’s latest tweets, “Yuuri is being weird too. And he’s making a lot more mistakes than he usually does,” she says as Yuuri takes another fall into the ice.

“Guys,” Axel whispers, eyes gleaming, “do you think something happened between the two of them?”

The triplets stop and look at each other as a thought jumps from one sister to the next.

“ _Could it be_?!” they exclaim together.

“Hm?” Victor says later during a break as he buys a coffee from the vending machine.

“Come on,” Lutz says, sly, “You can tell us. Did something happen between you and Yuuri?”

“Not really,” Victor answers, completely unconcerned. “Why?”

“Really? Nothing weird at all happened?” Loop prods.

Victor holds the lip of the can to his mouth. “Actually,” he says, thoughtful, “something weird did happen last night.”

“What? Tell us, tell us, tell us!”

\--

Yuuko drops the skates she’s holding as the high pitched screams of her precious darlings reverberated around the front office. “Hey, you three! Stop making a racket!”

The kids ran to her, Victor trailing behind them.

“Ma!” “Listen to this!” “Victor saw the Ghost of Hasetsu!”

“Oh, you know that’s just an old wives’ tale.”

“No, it’s true! Victor, tell her!”

She looks at Victor, who shrugs. “I ran into a strange woman in the onsen last night—“

“At midnight!” Axel pipes up.

“She had long, long black hair!” says Lutz.

“And she disappeared in thin air when Victor tried to follow her!” Loop intones.

“And this morning,” Axel continues, “when Victor asked about her, Auntie Katsuki said—“

“’We don’t have any guests like that here,’” Lutz imitates Katsuki’s mom perfectly.

“Wow,” Victor says, clapping. “That’s great.”

“What else could it be but the Ghost of Hasetsu!”

Yuuko keeps her face straight and says, “Okay, that’s enough. You shouldn’t spread such nonsense.”

“Oh?” Victor says, smiling. “But I think it’s interesting! I didn’t know Hasetsu has something like this.”

“Every town has a ghost story or two,” Yuuko says with a shrug, “this one is ours. The legend goes that she was the beautiful wife of a noble at the castle, who one day is murdered by her husband’s jealous lover. So she goes around looking to punish playboys and cheating men.”

“See! That’s why she showed herself to you, Mister World Famous Playboy!” Loop accuses just as Yuuri walks into the room.

Yuuko watches Yuuri flinch guiltily. Thankfully it looks like Victor didn’t notice as he’s saying to her child, “Do you even know what that word means?”

“Anyway!” Yuuko says over all of them. “Are you two still going to continue practicing?”

“No,” Victor answers, looking at Yuuri, “I think it’s best if we call it a day. We’ll start early tomorrow, okay Yuuri?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks.”

“Well in that case!” Yuuko says, staring hard at Yuuri. “Yuuri, why don’t we go somewhere and hang out, just like old times?”

“Uh, sure…”

“Girls, wait for your dad to pick you up, okay? Victor, you mind watching them?”

Victor blinks.

“Great! Thanks a bunch, you guys can wait outside,” she says, and cheerfully kicks the four of them out the doors, which she locks immediately.

Then she goes to where Yuuri sits on a bench, staring at half unlaced boots. She could see his hands shaking. She sighs and gently holds them.

“Yuuri?” she asks gently, “Are you okay?”

“Yu-chan,” he says, voice thin and wavering, staring at her helplessly, “he _saw_.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Hahahahahahahahaha!” Minako and Yuuko’s faces are beet red from laughing and Yuuri kind of wants to die right now.

“Stop it! It’s not funny!” They’re holed up in Minako’s ballet studio, open chip bags and soda bottles flying everywhere as the two women roll around on the floor, holding their bellies in hilarity.

“Oh Yuuri-kun, it is really, really funny,” Yuuko says, wiping her streaming eyes.

“Oh my god, did he try to pick you up?” Minako squeals. “Did he? _Did he?!_ ”

“N-no! Of course not—“

But Yuuko is already talking over him, giggling, “I bet he did! You always did look cute as a girl Yuuri- _chan_.”

“No you have it all wrong!” Yuuri protests, waving his arms around. “He ignored me—well, until the end—but he didn’t do anything weird.” Then, almost without meaning to, adds softly, “He was the perfect gentleman.”

“ _Pffft!_ ” Minako and Yuuko’s faces scrunch up in identical expressions of glee, staring wide eyed at his blushing face, until: “ _Hahahahahahahahaha!!!_ ”

“Oh no! You’re not falling for him, are you Yuuri?! Hahaha!”

“Don’t worry, no one would blame you if you did, what with his face—“

“—and butt, and—“

Yuuri covers his ears and lies face down on the floor. “I give up.”

Later, he has his head on Minako’s lap as Yuuko massages his aching feet. “Maybe you should tell him,” Minako says as she gently runs her fingers through his hair.

Yuuri doesn’t bother to open his eyes. “No way.”

“Do you think he’ll be mean about it?” Yuuko asks. “Or that he won’t keep it a secret?”

Yuuri doesn’t even need to think when he answers, “No, he won’t be mean, and I know he won’t tell anybody. He’s a good person. But… it’s scary.” It’s very, very scary. He has never, in fact, willingly told anyone about his… condition. The people who know, know because they’re either his family or have known him his entire life, when he was young enough that changing wasn’t restricted to just the twilight hours.

“Yeah,” Yuuko agrees softly. “I can’t even imagine how it must be for you, Yuuri-kun.”

“Hey, can you show us?” Minako asks, “What she looks like now?”

“Um, you know I can’t really control it. It just happens a bit after midnight. Sometimes.” But it’s happening almost once a week since he’s come back to Japan, while in the five years he was in Detroit, it happened less than a dozen times altogether. Yuuri doesn’t know what this increase in frequency means, and that worries him.

“And you always change back at dawn, right?”

“Yeah.”

Minako starts to hum “Swan Lake” and Yuuri chuckles. “Can I stay here?” he asks, “I don’t really want to go home right now.”

“Sure,” Minako nods. “I still have your old sleeping bag somewhere around here.”

“Ah, I should get going,” Yuuko says, getting up with a stretch. “Are you feeling better now, Yuuri-kun?”

Yuuri smiles and lets Yuuko pull him up off the floor. “Yes, thank you, Yu-chan.”

Yuuko hugs him. “You know we’re always on your side. No matter what.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says, hugging her back tight.

He _does_ feel better, less anxious and nervy. So later, when he wakes up a bit after midnight feeling the unfamiliar-yet-familiar weight on his chest, and the slight ache that comes from the change to a woman, he takes it in stride. The studio is perfectly quiet, but there’s enough light from outside to see by, so he climbs out of the sleeping bag and stands in front of the mirrored wall.

This is the first time in… probably two, almost three years, that he’s seen what he fully looks like when he’s like this. He usually just hides under the covers and wills himself back to sleep, looking forward to dawn when can open his eyes and be back to normal. When the world is back to normal.

Yuuri is not a vain person. Mirrors held no appeal to him other than a way to check his form and the fit of his costume. He doesn’t even think about his body much beyond it being the main vehicle through which he can express his art. His skating takes precedence over everything.

But nevertheless he is still a dancer; he knows what beauty is.

So he can’t deny that the woman in the mirror is certainly beautiful.

She doesn’t even look all that different from him, he thinks. A smaller chin and a more feminine jaw, but the shape of her face is more or less his own. Her eyes, nose, and lips too, they’re all the same. The hair is what’s really different, reaching to her waist in one smooth, straight fall. She has no fringe and, he thinks as he tucks her hair behind her ear, that the way her hair falls partly over her face is what makes her look more mysterious and less like him.

And of course there’s…  he cups her breasts with both hands, then promptly yanks them off, blushing furiously.

And Victor saw them, he thinks with a whimper. How embarrassing!

Not for the first time he viciously regrets going to the onsen last night. He doesn’t even know what in the world compelled him to leave his room.

He sighs.

A slight movement in the mirror catches his eye.

Oh, right, he thinks, staring at the little girl looking at him from the darkened corner of the studio, this is the other reason why the change is so bothersome.

“Yuuri-chan?” the little girl asks, sleepily knuckling her eyes. “Is it really you?”

“H-hello, Kana-chan,” he says softly, voice wavering at its unexpected feminine timber. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yuuri-chan!” Kana flings herself into his arms, and Yuuri blinks in surprise as he catches her. “Welcome back! I’ve missed you so much! Wow, you’ve gotten so tall, and your hair is so long now. You’re so pretty!”

Yuuri smiles at her. He hasn’t seen her since before he left for Detroit.

She had been a year older than him back when both of them were Minako’s students. Now, she still appears as a cheerful nine-year-old while Yuuri is already twenty-three. His heart squeezes painfully in his chest for a moment as she talks and gestures energetically, smiling a wide gap-toothed grin. He remembers when she had proudly showed him the fallen baby tooth, wrapped in a bright pink handkerchief her mother had given her.

“Yuuri-chan! Yuuri-chan!”

Yuuri blinks. “Oh! I’m sorry Kana-chan. What was that?”

The little spirit pouts adorably at him. “I _said_ : Did you win? Did you see Victor? Did you beat him? You said you were going far, far away so that you can get stronger? Did you?”

“Ah,” Yuuri says, scuffing his feet into the floor. “Not really. I kind of, um, failed the last competition, actually… oh!” he adds, after seeing Kana’s smile dim. “But it’s different now, because Victor is my coach!”

“No way!” she gasps. “Really? That’s soooo cool!”

“Isn’t it?” Yuuri agrees. “He’s choreographing my program and it’s really amazing!”

“Oh, wow,” Kana says, stars in her eyes. “I wish I could see it!”

“Yeah, I wish you could, too.”

“Is it summer now?” Kana asks as she looks out the window. “The last time I was awake there was snow everywhere, and there were Santas in the street.”

Yuuri frowns. “Are you sleeping a lot, Kana-chan?”

“Well, yeah. Because it’s gotten so boring since you’ve been gone. No one can see me, not even Minako-sensei, and lately there have been less and less kids, not many classes either…”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. That’s… that’s not good. And now that he looks closely, Kana seems more translucent than he’s ever seen her, and while he can still touch her, she feels… less substantial. Her aura is fading.

Somehow, Yuuri knows that the next time she falls asleep may be her last.

“I think,” she says softly, “that I’m going away soon. I can feel it.”

“Kana-chan…”

“Hey, Yuuri-chan, I have a request. Will you hear it?”

There is a significance, a weight to her words that Yuuri can feel. He knows that he should refuse, but… “Yes,” he agrees, and sits in seiza before the spirit. “I will hear your request.”

“Thank you,” she says, solemn. “I’d like to see you skate, Yuuri-chan. In person. Not in a video or on TV. Can, can I do that?”

“I’m… not sure,” Yuuri answers. Because he can only see spirits when he’s in this form, he doesn’t have any experience with really interacting with them. Aren’t there rules and such about where spirits can go, or something?

But… somehow he can also feel that the knowledge is _there_ , in his mind, just a bit beyond conscious thought.

He rubs his forehead roughly. He’d rather have three hours practicing the quad Salchow than this…

He looks at Kana’s small, upset face and opens his mouth to turn her down.

“There is a way,” he hears himself say instead.

Wait, what?

“Really?” Kana jumps up, eyes shining.

“Yes. Just hold my hand, and don’t let go no matter what.”

What’s going on?

He feels Kana put her hand in his then he gets up, gathers his things, and leads her out of Minako’s studio. He feels something as he’s crossing the threshold, as if Kana is tied to something pulling her back, but one firm tug has the little spirit stumbling beside him and out the door.

He passes by the usual snack bars and pubs on the way the Ice Castle, all the while feeling as confused as he did on the moment Victor declared himself as his coach.

\--

Victor raises his fist in victory as his latest challenger passes out snoring on the scarred table in front of him. Cheers and groans in equal measure erupt from the crowd as money is exchanged and he’s roundly slapped on the back in congratulations.

“Hahaha, for such a skinny gaijin, you sure can drink!” one of the ojisan—Yamashita? Kinoshita? Victor can’t remember what—laughs.

“That’s because,” Victor explains, with perfect enunciation, thank you very much, “I am not just any gaijin. I am _Russian_. And Russians,” he declares, “Russians can drink. Vodka is mother’s milk for us. And sake. And beer.”

He hefts another tumbler of beer that mysteriously appeared at his elbow. A miracle. “To beer!”

“To beer!” the crowd repeats, raising their own glasses.

Ah, Victor thinks as he drinks and drinks, Japan is wonderful.

There are a few more hazy minutes, or thirty, of convivial male camaraderie and then Victor starts to get up.

“And now,” he announces, “I must go.”

“Why?” his friends ask.

“Because,” he answers very seriously, “I am hunting.”

“A woman?”

“A ghost!” he says as he slaps down some bills on the table. “The ghost of Haset—Hasetsu.”

The crowd laughs and he waves at them as he stumbles out into the cool-warm summer night, a bottle of mineral water hanging from his fingers. He takes a long swig and a few deep breaths to clear his head then turns toward home, or Yuuri’s home, happy and cheerful and looking forward to another day of watching Yuuri get better and better tomorrow.

He hadn’t really been serious about looking for the ghost—after all, it’s more likely that it had just been a local who had snuck in, or something equally ordinary. In the bright light of morning, he had decided that he’d probably imagined her moving like Yuuri.

But maybe, he thinks as he sees that same woman—and Victor is definitely not drunk enough to be hallucinating—walk down the street toward the Ice Castle, he hadn’t imagined anything at all.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Yuuri plucks one long strand of hair from his head and wraps it around Kana’s wrist three times before tying it off. “There,” he says, “this will bind you to me until I take it off.”

Kana blinks at it. “Thank you,” she says, and goes to look around the front office of the ice rink with wide curious eyes.

Yuuri still isn’t sure what’s going on, and why he seems to be saying and doing things that he doesn’t understand at all, but somehow he’s strangely complacent at being a sort-of passenger inside his own body.

He goes to the rental racks and picks out a pair of skates that would fit his smaller feet then laces up quickly. He’s lucky that his training clothes still fit this body, or at least aren’t way too big for him to wear. He wishes he had a sports bra though, he thinks with a frown as he looks down at his chest; he can clearly see his nipples poking his athletic shirt. He ties his hair back with a rubber band and gets up from the bench.

Kana is staring at something outside the front doors and he goes to her side. “What is it?” he asks and peers into the darkness with her. He doesn’t see anything.

Kana turns to him with a wide smile. “Nothing! Are you going to skate for me now? Are you? Are you?”

“Yeah, come on,” Yuuri says with a laugh as he ushers her further inside. “I hope you’re not expecting too much from me, you know I’ve never really skated in this body before, at least not since I was a kid.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be great!”

Yuuri shakes his head and follows her rink side. He flips the main light switches and blinks as the enormous space is suddenly flooded with light.

As always, seeing the ice empty and waiting for him fills Yuuri with anticipation and a quiet happiness.

“Wow! It’s huge!” Kana says excitedly as she peers over the railing.

Yuuri smiles and leads her to where she can watch him along the long side of the rink. He does a few quick stretches then takes off his blade guards, stepping into the ice more carefully than he usually does. He has a lower center of gravity than he’s used to, and while it seems that there’s no problem when he’s on solid ground, skating on two thin blades is another matter altogether.

But it seems that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, he thinks as he pushes off toward the center of the rink, steadily gaining speed until he’s zipping around in a wide circle, air whistling past his cheeks.

He feels as comfortable on the ice now as he is as a man, and after several minutes of basic exercises he decides it would be safe enough to try a simple step sequence and lead it into a camel spin. He feels good, in control, and his mind is settled and calm as the world spins around and around. So he pushes on and shifts into a sit spin before exiting with a flourish.

He’s smiling wide when he comes to a full stop directly facing Kana, who stares at him with eyes impossibly big and bright.

“Wow Yuuri-chan! Wow wow wow!” she cries, jumping up and down and clapping. “That’s so cool! It’s just like in TV! You’re amazing!”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says, skating until he’s right in front of her. He blinks as she grabs his hand.

“Was that what Victor taught you?”

“Um, no, those were just some basic things,” he says. “Do you want to see the program he made for me?”

“Yes!” she squeals. “Please please please!”

“Okay, okay,” Yuuri laughs. He grabs his phone and sets it to play on “Eros.”

“…’Eros’?” Kana tilts her head curiously. “What does that mean?”

“Er, nothing important,” Yuuri says, then quickly continues with: “Kana-chan, you’ll have to push ‘play’ when I tell you to.”

Kana frowns. “But Yuuri-chan, I can’t…”

“Oh, right,” Yuuri says. Then, as he’s wondering what to do, he feels his hands gently hold Kana’s face and his lips place a soft kiss on her forehead. He feels _something_ leave him as soon as he does, as if he somehow has given her a bit of his own spirit. “There you go,” he says. “Now you can touch things, at least for a little while.”

“Wow…” Kana breathes as she gingerly picks up his phone, her fingers moving across the screen and case reverently.

Yuuri pushes back from the wall and gets in position. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, imagines himself as the beautiful woman… No, he decides, he’s not just any ordinary beauty: he’s the siren, the seductress, the femme fatale that entices men and brings them to their knees.

Yes, he thinks as she opens his eyes, a small secret smile playing on her lips, that’s who I am.

“Go ahead, Kana-chan,” she says, voice pitched low and smooth, “play the music.”

“O-okay,” the little girl says, eyes wide.

The music from his phone is tinny and thin, but that doesn’t matter. Her charm isn’t dependent on a soaring accompaniment or a flashy costume. She entices with the grace of her movements, the delicate turn of her arms, and the clean, long, elegant lines of her body. She is admired, she thinks as she turns her quads into triples, not for technical skill but for the beauty of her performance.

Watch me, _want_ me, she croons to him in her heart, to the man for whom she dances, for I am your deepest desire and your ultimate salvation.

The program ends and she strikes her final pose, heart pounding and blood singing in her veins.

“Victor,” she gasps, because suddenly he is _right there_ , standing at the far side of the rink silently staring at her.

Yuuri has a bit of a gibbering moment where his brain shorts out in panic. He actually falls flat on his butt on the ice as incoherent screaming thoughts trip over and over in his head. “Um, this is—I, I—uh—“

“Yuuuri-chaaaan!”

Yuuri squeaks as Kana flings herself into his arms, squealing excitedly. In the back of his mind, Yuuri wonders what this looks like to Victor, him being pushed around the ice by an invisible force while his phone floats in mid-air.

“That was _amazing!_ You’re so cool! That was the best thing I’ve ever seen! The jumps! The spins! Everything! It was sooooo cool!”

“Kana-chan, you have to let me breathe,” Yuuri yelps as Kana practically smothers him in her joy.

Kana eases up and after a moment says in a voice now quiet and wavering, “Thank you, Yuuri-chan. I never thought I’d get to see this. I wanted to be a figure skater too, you know, and travel the world and meet all sorts of interesting people and have lots and lots of fun.”

“Kana-chan…”

“So I’m glad!” the little girl says fiercely, looking at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m glad that even if I wasn’t able to do those things, that you’re doing them, Yuuri-chan. I’m so happy for you.”

Yuuri can only nod and blink back his own tears.

“Thank you granting my request,” Kana says, and he knows that that is a cue, a signal that their time together is at an end.

Yuuri sees himself reach for the strand of hair around her wrist and tries to stop his hand from moving, fighting back as hard as he could. “Wait,” he says, “you don’t have to go!”

But she only smiles a little wistfully and does nothing as he removes the binding. “Even if it was just for a little while, I’m glad to have known you.” She touches his cheek with a gentle hand. “Bye bye, Yuuri-chan.”

“Kana-chan,” he says, voice hitching, and watches one of his very first friends slowly disappear in a haze of beautiful twinkling lights. “Goodbye.”

He catches his phone as it drops and after a moment of staring at it, gets up from the ice.

For a long minute all he could do is stand there in the middle of the rink and look at the spot where Kana disappeared. Eventually he rubs his face and exits the rink.

By the time he reaches the doors to the front office he’s screwed up enough courage to look Victor in the eye. He can’t make out what Victor is thinking, can’t read his expression at all, and it makes Yuuri wince. But he’s feeling so tired, so physically and emotionally drained, that he just doesn’t care anymore. All he wants is to go home and sleep.

“Yuuri,” Victor says.

Yuuri flinches and looks at him warily.

But Victor only smiles the way he does when Yuuri does something up to his standards and says, “That was your best performance yet.”

Of course. It’s just like he thought… Victor is a good person.

“Victor!” Yuuri cries, just barely managing to hold back his tears. He flings his arms around Victor and holds on tight.

“Well,” Victor says, patting his back in a comforting way. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but you seem to have gone through a lot tonight. Shall we go home?”

Yuuri only hugs him tighter, relieved beyond words.

Victor doesn’t say anything else, and the two of them walk back to Yu-topia in a silence that is almost comfortable. Yuuri guesses that this is Victor’s way of giving him some breathing room, and he’s grateful for it. Yuuri fully appreciates that while Victor is the pushiest person he’s ever known, he’s also the most perceptive.

Yuuri thinks of many things as they make their way back home. There’s a decision to be made here, he knows, and he also knows that whatever he chooses to do next will affect his relationship with Victor forever, for better or worse.

So he hopes that he’s made the right one when he says: “Victor... tonight, let's sleep together.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

“And here I was, getting all excited for nothing,” Victor sighs, looking at Yuuri—and it _is_ Yuuri, for while the hows and whys are beyond him right now, _that_ he knows for sure—snuggled up against Maccachin in his bed, shoulders raising evenly in sleep, her… his?... hair fanning around his head.

But this isn’t bad too, he thinks fondly as he takes out his phone, smiling at the sweet picture they made together.

“He couldn’t even wait until I was done with my bath, huh Maccachin?” he whispers to his dog. Maccachin thumps his tail a few times as Victor climbs in. “Well, he’s definitely going to explain himself later.” He gently brushes a long lock of hair from Yuuri’s cheek and lies down facing him. How extraordinary. Then again, he already knew that Yuuri was someone special.

“Goodnight, Yuuri.”

\--

Snow.

Ice.

A white kimono.

A man’s voice.

“I love you, Yu…”

Yuuri feels himself dragged to wakefulness, the dream fading so fast that by the time his eyes open into the dim darkness of the room, he’s already forgotten it. He shifts under the covers, warm and comfortable and wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep but there’s something weird pressing into his butt…

He reaches down with his hand and feels around—oh, it’s his phone, buzzing a silent alarm. He squints blearily at the display: 4:25 am. Now why’d he do that? He shuts it off and closes his eyes, drifting back to sleep…

He jerks up as a rush of adrenaline floods through him, pushing him awake. He gropes his chest; good, he’s still a woman. And just in time too as he could feel that the change is very close.

He turns to the vague shadowy shape beside him. “Victor, wake up.” He shakes his shoulder. “Victor.”

“Mm,” Victor murmurs, unfocused eyes slitting open.

“Victor—” Yuuri yelps as he’s suddenly flat on his back, Victor wrapped around him like an octopus. Sure, warm hands slide their way up under his shirt, touching everywhere. “дорогая…” Victor breathes against his neck. Yuuri can feel his lips moving against his skin.

“Victor!” Yuuri grabs his head and pushes him back. Is he mistaking him for an old girlfriend or something? “It’s me, Yuuri.”

Victor blinks at him like a child, pouting. “I know who you are. Why do you have breasts?”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Yuuri says and shoves him aside to turn on the lamp. “Or show you. Watch.”

As always, the change back to his normal body comes over him in a single cold rush: a deep chill that emanates from his belly to his chest and leaves him shivering for minutes after. He’s watched himself change before in a mirror, when he was younger and curious, but this is the first time he’s seen it reflected in someone else’s eyes.

Victor looks stunned, mouth hanging open in shock.

Yuuri finds he isn’t brave enough to see what expression crosses his face after. Would it be fear? Anger? Disgust? He had been oddly complacent and passive earlier in the ice rink, but what if _this_ is what makes it too strange and unnatural to bear? He hugs himself, staring at the green duvet, feeling dread creep into his heart—

“Does it hurt?”

“Huh?” His eyes snap back up to Victor’s face. All he could see in his eyes is pure, simple concern.

“Does it hurt? You look like you’re in pain, Yuuri.”

“N-no,” Yuuri mutters, teeth chattering. “I just get v-very cold, after.”

Victor’s hands are on him before he finishes talking. “You’re freezing!” he exclaims, and then Yuuri is being dragged down to the bed again. Victor flips the duvet over their heads and wraps his arms around Yuuri, moving his hands quickly up and down his back to warm him up. Yuuri presses his cheek against Victor’s chest; his bare skin feels so wonderfully warm and comforting. For several minutes all Yuuri does is listen to Victor’s heart beat a steady rhythm as the cold finally leaves him.

“The legend goes,” he whispers into the cocooned darkness, “that once upon a time a yuki-onna, a snow woman demon, came across a man who had gotten lost in a blizzard. And instead of letting him die, she nursed him back to health and afterward followed him back to the village and became his wife.” He shrugs, and feels Victor’s fingers feather contemplatively through the hair at his nape. “My great-grandfather told me that story. I’m not sure how much of it is really true but I don’t exactly have another reason to explain what happens to me. He said,” he continues, “that every once in a while, the yuki-onna’s soul manifests in one of her descendants. When I’m like that I can see spirits… and other things.”

“Amazing,” Victor breathes. “Just like an anime!”

Yuuri huffs in amusement. “I guess. He said it was easier back in the old days when the child would simply be raised as a girl, wear kimonos and such.” He sighs. “It didn’t show up with me until after my first birthday, and I don’t think I would have liked being brought up a girl anyway.”

“I think you would have made a lovely girl,” Victor declares loyally. “You _do_ make a lovely girl.”

“Thanks, I think. But you know if my life had gone that way I wouldn’t have been able to compete,” Yuuri points out. “I would be forced to live quietly and never pursue anything that would bring me in the public eye.”

“Ah! That’s right,” Victor says, squeezing him tighter. “Good thing you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. Then later, when he realizes that he won’t be able to sleep until he asks, whispers, “Victor, how can you accept this so easily? Aren’t you afraid of me?”

For the longest time Victor doesn’t say anything and Yuuri is sure he’d fallen back asleep. Yuuri sighs and closes his eyes.

“Yuuri is Yuuri,” Victor finally says, and his solemn voice makes Yuuri’s eyes go wide and his heart clench so hard it hurt. “Since this is something that is a natural part of what makes you you, how could I _not_ accept it? I could never be afraid of you.” Yuuri feels Victor’s lips against the top of his head. “Don’t you know? You’ve brought wonder back in my world.”

“Victor…” Yuuri gazes up at him, lips wobbly.

Victor smiles. “Now go back to sleep. You did so badly in yesterday’s practice that the day was a total wash. You better do better today, or it’s the waterfall for you.”

“Waterfall?!”

\--

“Hmmm, you and Victor seem to be getting along really well lately,” Yuuko remarks a few days later.

Yuuri only smiles at her and wipes his sweating face with the towel she hands him. The choreography for his free skate program is coming along great. “Hey Yuuko-chan, do you remember Kana-chan?”

“Kana-chan?” Yuuko blinks, then looks down with a sad smile. “Yeah. She was a really cute kid.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri agrees softly, “she really was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is the first story in a planned series exploring the idea that, well, Yuuri is actually a magical girl ice princess in disguise LOL (I'm only kind of joking.)
> 
> Though really this fic is just the most convoluted way to answer the question of why Yuuri is so opposed to sleeping together with Victor, even after he removed all evidence of fanboyism. ...Obviously it's because he turns into a girl at night sometimes. ;)


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